It is well known that many primary students have difficulty in learning primary mathematics in our base ten system. Students also now need to become familiar with and learn to use a base two system but this is normally reserved for higher grades. This invention provides a model for the Instructor to use and a somewhat similar model for the child to use either personally or in very small groups.
The kit includes an Instructor unit that basically is one inch cubes, with five blue cubes, five red cubes and five yellow cubes with cubes held in a vertically aligned slots with each slot being about three inches wide so that all cubes may be hidden under a numbered center line stick. An example of use is as follows: three cubes may be pushed out with a 3 inch angle stick to show we now have three; four more may be pushed out with a 4 inch angle stick to show that we have ADDED 4 so that we now have 7. Two may be pushed below the center line stick to show that we SUBTRACTED 2 so that we now have 5. In the Instructor unit the sticks are angles and may be removably marked to show fractions and percentages. Students can visually see that xc2xc equals 25% etc,etc
Also included in the Kit are Child training units using three eighths inch cubes held vertically in slots and may be manually slid back and forth to indicate addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. The slots are approximately xc2xc inch deep. Thus a child can both DO and SEE simple mathematical calculations. Actual classroom use has proven the worth of these units. Paper model copies of the training unit are also used so that a child may color in instructor suggested problems.
We can stack angle sticks that are used to aid the visualization of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division next to the right side of the cubes in the Instructor unit. These angle sticks can be chosen to be the proper length for a fraction or percentage of a chosen number and removably labeled. The unit then also allows teaching and visualization of the use of fractions and percentages and their interrelationships.
We have found no training models in the literature allowing the same utility and visualization.
The kit may be summarized as containing a vertical cube stack with different sized angled sticks to allow a teacher to move cubes to indicate simple mathematical functions and their interrelations with the cubes allowing a student to actually visualize each operation. There is also available a Child training unit that allows the child to both do and see simple operations.